I reverted some changes mentioned in my previous thread due to qq and the fact that said qq would just slow down the process of this patch actually happening.

You really should re-read the class changes section to get an idea of where this version of my patch is at. Everything still needs play testing though, to make sure the balance still feels right with melee on mobs and bosses and to make sure some of the new skill reworks feel alright damage wise.

Anyways, I'm pretty happy with what I have here and I would like to move forward, if the community is ready to. I feel like with a patch of this size a realm beta test is needed to make sure nothing got completely messed up. I'm doing the work required for a new patch but it all means nothing if you all don't support it and post here saying you all would like to start a testing phase eventually.

This change is to reduce the requirement of needing a necromancer for physical damage builds. All other damage types have access to pierce to lower boss resistances themselves. Currently melee have access to CTC amp items that do help in normal and nightmare but have essentially no affect afterward, because of bosses having well over 100 physical resistance with their boss charms.

With this change all physical res on boss charms will be removed and player amplify damage will be reduced by 40%. All bosses charms have 30 or 40 physical resistance. Bosses in hell with a 30 physical resistance charm and 'regular' physical resistance of 40 and above will also have their 'regular' physical res reduced by 10. What does this mean? it means the current easy-mode bosses for physical builds become slightly more resistant, but that's okay because this mod is made to be hard. It also means that current bosses that physical builds really cant do anything against with a necromancer with 20pt amp, get a reduction in physical resistances.

Additionally physical resistances of the 'elite' mobs like berserkers, wyrms, seraphims, mariliths, worldstone golems will be reduced a tiny bit as well. Other trash mobs will be fine since physical builds can kill those without amp anyways. Some people may argue that this change will make trash mobs harder for melee builds since amp values are lower and mobs physical resistances aren't being reduced, but I don’t think that argument is a relevant one when the problem melee builds have with trash is lack of AOEabilities, not that they need amp(ex: bowzons). Plus you can always kill high res physical mobs with damage type conversion skills, open wounds, elemental damage from gear, elemental damage procs, mercs or teammates. But honestly there aren’t many high physical res mobs and the ones that are, are meant to be a challenge for physical builds anyways.

With these changes:

1) with no amp you actually deal a bit of damage 2) ctc amp gives you a really good fighting chance 3) 1pt necro amp is a better than ctc amp sources in magnitude, duration and reliability4) 20pt necro amp gives you the same damage output as it did before5) some are meant to be highly physical resistant and/or immune and I didn’t touch them, you still wont be killing smith/sszak/izual/etc with physical damage anytime soon6) “Ok Mraw, its great that you're saying all this but do you have any real numbers?” Yes, see the charts and formula below!

As you can see these changes mainly affect amp values from item procs and 1 point amp from necromancers.With these changes:

1) Melee can now actually deal damage alone and with a party that does not include a necromancer

2) 1 point necromancer amp is better than ctc amp from items, in magnitude, radius and duration.

3) maxed out amp from a necromancer has the same affect as it did before, only slightly weaker as it requires slvl 55 to max out instead of slvl44, but this difference is minor and -28% vs -30% isnt anything to fuss about.

These values shown above are only for Hell and Normal Baal, but with a reduction of 40% physical res from the harder bosses in hell and a 40% reduction in maximum amp bonus all bosses will effected in a similar way as shown above. All of this will need testing before being implemented but this is a good start at evening out the disparity of physical vs elemental damage and reducing physical builds dependance on have a necromancer with maxed amp, a problem that all other damage types don’t have to deal with.

-Barbs are getting some pretty nice buffs, some might seem overpowered at first but think about how many stats melee druids get just from maxing oak/lycan/wereform, and remember all barb attacks besides WW/DS/Frenzy are capped at 9fpa

-set Shout to a flat 10 min duration and remove longer duration syngeries -battle orders and battle command now give their bonus to shout so you only need to cast 1 buff to get the full effect of 3

Shout: -the def boost requires you to have atleast 1 hard point in shout so oskill items like cta and ondals dont give def boosts when used on non barbs -cta and ondals have been given oskill shout due to new shout/bo/bc changes

BattleOrders: -set bo to 8%+3% per hard point and +3% per hard point in increasedstamina; caps at 125%

Ironskin: -add 15% def synergy for hardpoints in increased stamina this will give all barbs +400% def when they max incstam; this only seems fair since druids get 10% per lvl from wolf and 20% per lvl from bear soft points -remember that bash/stun/conc/berserk cap out at 9fpa vs other melee classes who have skills that can hit 3, 3.5 and 4 fpa; up to 3 times as fast.

bash: -increase base ed from 50% to 150% -increase ed% per lvl from 10% to 40% (no one maxes this skill and it caps at 9fpa and it has no other bonus besides KB that doesnt work vs 99% of bosses. This attack needs a huge ED% bonus to even be considered. If you max bash you deserve the huge dmg bonus you get. -set ar bonus to 40%+20% per lvl -increase base dmg bonus from 1 per level to 2 per level -synergies: -WW +10% ed/ar per pt -leapattack +10%ed/ar per pt -berserk converts 1% dmg to magic per pt

concentrate: -remove defense bonus (read the next line before you start crying) -add 'armor override' at +5%+5% per base level; defense override stat works by multiplying your total TOTAL def; So if you have 100k def after shout/ironskin/frozenarmor/whatever using blvl 20 conc will give you 200k def. -increased ed per lvl from 10% to 20%

masteries: -Removed Sword, Mace, Polearm and Spear Masteries. -Axe Mastery is now 'Melee Mastery' -increase AR from 60%+10% per lvl to 60%+30% per lvl (barbs have shit AR compared to all other melee builds; maulers get 30%+15% on werebear and 50%+25% on their one attack skill for a total of 80%+40%; barbs should have more AR than bear druids since barbs dont get 3fpa and dont have the luxury of only needing 1 attack skill. -increase ED from 30%+10% per lvl to 30%+20% per lvl (bearform gets 100% + 20% with an attack that reaches 3fpa) increased speed: -attack rate is now a diminishing return from 1-40%

Phoenix Strike: -1 charge: on hit dmg and cast a bonespear -2 charges: magic nova -3 charges: magic bolts shoot out randomly -gets synergy from fof/cot/boi, but you only need to max one to get full dmg on phoenix strike

Immolation Arrow: -reduced the inital hit by a lot, but buffed the damage over time to make up for this and the overall damage remains the same; immo arrow is no longer the only spell you use

Exploding Arrow: -now deals the more instant aoe splash damage than immolation arrow; this will be your main trashing skill; you use immolation arrow on bosses and large mobs that dont die in 1-2 exploding arrows

Ice Arrow: -buffed the damage signifcantly; now deals about 33% more damage than Frozen Arrow late game and is weaker than immolation arrow if the boss stands still; but Ice arrow makes up for it since it deals its damage all at once

MagicArrow: - increase convert to 100%

Innersight: - reduce enemy physical res by -3-(lvl/5)-(blvl/5) so with +22allskills -7 with 1 hard point and -15 with 20hard points -flag it as a curse so it cant stack with amp/decrep

-So werebear gets 45% + 5% per lvl of lycan and wolf gets 25% + 5% per lvl of lycan; previously druids had 60+25%+6%perlvl on werebear and 30%+25%%+6%per lvl on werewolf. Doesnt this seem a little insane to anyone else? druids also have acess to oak which is 25%+5%. This huge bonus HP on wereforms plus the insane amount of dmg/ar/def/crit (from maxing only 3 skills mind you) they now have and the fact that they can reach 3fpa makes them COMPLETELY outclass any other melee build. werebear was the main issue here, wolf form is fine, I even gave them a def boost since bear is so damn OP. Also since druids get access to increased stamina, giving them the most possible life buffs of all the classes, this nerf seems fair

Necromancer

Skeleton Warrior: -Back to 12 skeletons max based on hard points -reduced health by 40%; there is no reason that each skeleton should be tankier than a golem

Skeleton Archers: -Ok, so where to begin...seeing as these dudes can each get 20-30k damage or more with cheapo and common gear and the fact that i miss making a LR necro that has his own elemental attacks besides psn, I'd say they could use a bit of a rework -cut their physical damage in half 10-15k damage with common endgame gear now; you still get insane physical damage with them if you focus that -added fire damage to their attacks that recieves a synergy from lower resist -at lvl 55 skeleton mastery archers deal 3-5k fire damage in addtion to their physical damage -at lvl 55 skeleton mastery and blvl 20 lower resist they deal 10-15k fire damage -they receive fire pierce and fire mastery from the necro, similar to assassin traps

Golems: -increased damage from golemmastery -increased damage of clay/blood golem in NM and Hell -increased absorbs to match all other summons (this was a big reason they exploded instantly)

Poison Vortex -This skill replaces Poison Explosion -It is a melee attack that emits a short range, high damage but short poison length, nova. It deals about 50% more dps than Poison Strike, but you have to continue attacking to get it; are you brave enough?)

Poison Nova -With the new HP buff to psn builds this godly trash spell is getting a nerf -Now deals about the same amount of damage as before, only it deals it over 5 seconds instead of 3

I kept the chances to cast each spell very similar to old values. I just edited some stuff to make them use good spells and attacks unlike crap like unsynergized firestorm or basic attacks.I also gave normal a1/a3 mercs all the skills that NM/Hell have at modified values to keep it balanced for normal, so you dont have to wait until NM to hire a good caster a1/a3 merc

Combat: -20% chance to cast concentrate -40% chance to cast berserk (changed zeal to this since stun gives aoe now and wolf merc already zeals faster than combat ever could, plus berserk is cool and it makes combat barb unique) -40% chance to cast stun -I gave combat mercs Iron skin and weapon mastery since they are completely outclassed by shifting mercs without them -(in hell they have a chance to cast WC as well still; the chances for the attacks look like: 17%/36%/36%/10%

-All bow and javelin attacks no longer use quanity; besides normal attacks, strafe and double throw. The way they are coded makes it seem like it wont be possible to remove ammo use for these skills

-Barb helms now have ed/ar auto mods (similar to paladin shields) or +1-3 warcries auto mod; higer values of everything are more rare, naturallyThis is due to the complete rework of many barb skills and the way staffmods are coded. This way is an easy fix, since most barb skills give ed/ar anyways.

-I did a similar thing to assassin claws as well, but what I did here is much more extensive. Since half of the MA tree are new skills now the staff mods for assassin claws are messed up. So what I did was create a huge list of tons of +assassin skills auto mods, good ones and good combinations are very rare still. You won't notice much difference in game.

-I changed necro heads and wands in a similar manner to assassin claws, since Iron Maiden and Lifetap were already new skill entries they did not work as staff mods. I added some new skills with this patch, so I just went ahead and reworked the staff mod system for these items. I added just about any combination you would ever want and like before the good ones are really rare.

Barbs-BO/BC/Shout all working together. Sic change!Stun aoe, also really cool. The aoe is not stunning atm, just doing dmg, not sure if the shockwave was supposed to stun or notThe description of Concentrate says it increases physical resistance? Dbl throw, not seeing any passive pierce while throwing, maybe display is broken or it's not working.

Copied from other thread:Sorcs-New inferno is pretty cool! Could you add a display on the skill tree for how many patches are thrown out? Like 'next level: 6 flames' etc.

Paladins-20% dr on defiance is OP for smiters who will get 40% now. Or just use the defiance shield for free DR% and no skill points spent. Not to mention the 40% life buff they getting. Reduce to 1% per 2 hp, 30% dr doesn't seem as over the top, but they still going to have an easy time going over cap.

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PureRage-DoD wrote:

Cowards die in shame, I ain't afraid to lose a char, it's not like it's important.

Phoenix Strike:-1 charge: on hit dmg and cast a bonespear-2 charges: magic nova-3 charges: magic bolts shoot out randomly-gets synergy from fof/cot/boi, but you only need to max one to get full dmg on phoenix strike

Those changes I STILL can't agree with.1:The addition of Fireball, Lightning bolt, glacial spike and bonespear seems like nothing more than something to creates counters.2:Previously, different charges had different purposes. Fire had amazing damage over time, Lightning had by far the best single target damage, and cold had by far the best AOE damage.3:Phoenix combined elemental damage which made possible to go through immunities with a single skill. Granted, the new phoenix probably won't be stopped by immunities as easily as going multielements.Do the new charge skills still get synergy from Phoenix?

If you're going to keep Phoenix as magic damage, here are my suggestions.1: Remove the fireball, lightning bolt, glacial spike and bonespear unless you can make them not proc counters (if you can't, boost damage accordingly)2: Fist of Fire is fine.3: Shift the lightning damage back toward single target/short range aoe and increase damage accordingly(Bulk of the damage on the first charge)4: Blade of ice, bring back the charge two AOE for charge 1, then either drastically increase the range of that ice explosion for charge 3, or remove next-hit delay from chaos Ice Bolts. (Or make the bolts pierce)

In short, increase single target lightning damage to be far greater than the other two charge, at the cost of weaker AOE, massively buff the AOE from Blade of Ice and make it pretty much nothing but AOE damage.

For magic arrow, I already said this previously, but don't put it at 100% conversion.80% would be just fine if instead of a ridiculously low magic damage scaling with no synergy, we get increased magic damage % (Like impale) or another way to increase magic damage. (And maybe some AR bonus?)

The rest of the patch I got nothing against, but those changes just feel wrong to me.

-So werebear gets 45% + 5% per lvl of lycan and wolf gets 25% + 5% per lvl of lycan; previously druids had 60+25%+6%perlvl on werebear and 30%+25%%+6%per lvl on werewolf. Doesnt this seem a little insane to anyone else? druids also have acess to oak which is 25%+5%. This huge bonus HP on wereforms plus the insane amount of dmg/ar/def/crit (from maxing only 3 skills mind you) they now have and the fact that they can reach 3fpa makes them COMPLETELY outclass any other melee build. werebear was the main issue here, wolf form is fine, I even gave them a def boost since bear is so damn OP. Also since druids get access to increased stamina, giving them the most possible life buffs of all the classes, this nerf seems fair

But then Druids have 3hp per vita, and red pots are useless. Barbs get 4hp per vita and their usage of reds is great. So that's like:Barbs - 500 vit x 4 life = 2000Druid - 500 vit x 3 life = 1500I think all the buffs to barbs is enough to level the playing field and we don't need to nerfe lycan more (You know, since the dr10% is being taken from Armageddon rw, and the damage was nerfed on the skill itself making it increasingly hard for an fclaw to be effective vs mana burn bosses or anything in nm/hell while AR is really hard to keep in shape without sacrificing damage, or having an inventory full of ar charms, which means your base life is low because 3pt vita and all your % bonuses are not as effective; which Brings me to-Oak got nerfed a few patches ago alreadyAnd then Fstorm got taken away from ss and was not replaced by anything just taken away.)

Tl;dr Druids got nerfed enough, leave lycanthropy just my 2 cents

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PureRage-DoD wrote:

Cowards die in shame, I ain't afraid to lose a char, it's not like it's important.

Lycan is still better than increased stamina and Oak still gives much more HP than BO (as it should be since oak dies, etc).

I'm not buying the Armageddon excuse since its something other elemental melee builds didn't have before, either. So instead of adding 10%DR to all 1 handed endgame melee weapons, I removed it from one.

Druids are still leaps and bounds above other melee classes in terms of damage/defense/health. Other melee classes are able to perform with 1/3 of the HP druids get, and they don't deal nearly as much damage, either.

However if a mass of people start qq'ing over their unkillable druids being reduced slightly (still overall the strongest melee class) then what choice do I have? The community has to agree...

If people really feel druids are too weak after these changes, I can make lycan 6% per level again. I honestly think they will be in a good spot. Druids do the most DPS and before they had by far the most health (still do when you consider they get access to all 4 life buffs, eventually)

They have the biggest life bulb when solo, with BO yes, but they also have the weakest mitigation of any other melee class.

Some points to keep in mind:Max res is very easily broken by LR or convic.DR% is easily dropped to negatives by amp, other builds can over stack or go CI.IM is a much higher threat due to high attack speed.High attack speed also means they draw more counters towards their paper thin defenses (and the oak).Phys based melee druids builds have no counter to phys immunes.War is a waste of runes for a SS druid because their HP comes from huge +% already. War is best suited to pally and sin as they have a much higher base hp.Better to use temps (for ele shifter) or tyraels IMHO.Barbs sins and pallys all get res increasing skills that completely negate an entire difficulty penalty and all have a way to counter phys immunes well.

They have 3/4 the base hp of the other top melee jobs (pally, barb and sin), so the lifebuffs have a lower base to work from (around 1.5k less base hp than those jobs).To be equal to the potential of a barb for HP, lycan + form needs to grant around 40-50% more than inc stamina.Quick math using large numbers to make it easy to view growth:Barb: 10,000hp (4hp/vita)druid: 7,500 hp (3hp/vita)barb needs 50%HP to reach 15kdruid needs 100%hp to reach 15kbarb needs 200%hp to reach 30kdruid needs 300%hp to reach 30kbarb needs 500%hp to reach 60kdruid needs 700% to reach 60kDef is mostly a moot point as all 4 of those chars can get a 5% chance to be hit anyway.They are great for solo play, but they get gradually worse in comparison as a party forms and buffs are shared between players.

Barb, sin and pally can all surpass a druid for max HP.I don't think a nerf is required, druids are popular because they are functional. I would place them as one of the few chars who are in a good place on all 3 tree's. The only exceptions being raven and solar vine. 2/30 skills being useless and the rest being functional is a good place to be. Nerfing the Shifter while buffing the barb will simply result in a huge power switch. Lets see how they work together and compare first.

My assassin has like 8x the effective hp of any druid you could hope to make in a party with the same buffs. Her cube is 90% full with different gear sets though, sin is srs bzns. . I seen a vid of a SS druid doing hell meph and tearing through a cube full of juvs, oak getting busted all over the place etc. I tanked him with less than a dozen rejuvs and a few reds, level 30ish bo (damn gimp barb partner didn't even max my only available lifebuff, it's a good job he is handsome ) and no oak, in full nats at level 90 lol.

While on the subject of sins, there is something wrong with blades. I can use normal attack and hit with ~90% accuracy. If i try to use blades (1 pointed, but shouldn't matter as im comparing to norm attack), I'm lucky to land a hit 20% of the time. It's extremely frustrating, so I just end up dragon tailing onto them and using 1 point dclaw lest I die of boredom or the boss randomly heals because they are failing terribly. The above relates to prime evils/sammy/los only.

I like your ideas mostly, I'd just like to piece out with somethig.1. Nerf the lower tiers on psychic hammer (and mind blast?), it's way too op in norm. Endgame damage is ok.2. FoH should get self damage and bolt damage equally from hb and hammer.3. Sanctuary as FoH synergy is nothing compared to the bypass (50% when maxed). Give it back the passive pierce (it also helps other magic builds who get access to it), and maybe a little more damage boost. Conc gives a lot more to hammers, ofc they have to do more damage as it's a more close combat skill.4. Make salvation synergies 1/3 from res auras. 20% sorbs for 60 points is fair, no need for this nerf.+ I hope every accidently appeared changes will be fixed like HoW's dr%/hard point and baal's resistances. Is there a thread where you collecting these? (question to everyone)I'll check the items when i'll have time, it's a huge list.

I added a high res version, link is in the OP. I hope this helps those of you who are starting to test it and if you want to continue playing low res go ahead and download fresh files, I've made some small updates to rares and some bosses phys res...etc.

Things I noticed:Blade of ice finally got the correct amount of AR bonus. Neat.Chaos ice bolts going back to the middle is a nice touch.

Fist of Fire is going to be crazy strong for damage over time, but that might not be too bad. (I thought the fire patch was going to be on the third charge, I was surprised).

Phoenix strike is weird. On the one hand, I kind of miss the old one, but individual charges are better so it's okay.(The phoenix skill effects does look somewhat silly. The lightning effect threw me off at first)

The change to blade sentinel is going to enable a lot of builds.Mana cost could(should) be lowered since it doesn't proc manaleech at all.

Enchant and FA being AOE buffs is really nice and work well, but need a casting animation. The state for warmth needs to be replaced (Fist of Ares would do the job nicely) Enchant and venom needs to have a visible state by default (somebody made something for this on the mod forum a long time ago. Works well)

Something needs to be done with battle command. Its just ridiculous right now.The stun nova isn't very pretty and could be worked on.

Inferno needs more work. My suggestion is to bring back the damage over time, have a max range set in stone, and have damage and width (Cone of fire) increase with level, so you'd have some massive cone of fire doing damage over time once maxed, like a dragon breathing fire or something.

Can we up shadow warrior starting gear level to 20 at least? (Also messing up with the scaling on those so you don't get stuck with low level gear on your shadows.

Random question, using "dragon claw" to charge up skills if you have two claws equiped, good or bad? Shadows do it (except for phoenix).

The changes to affixes is kind of weird but is more than welcomed. It will make uniques not as necessary to progress.Shops actually sell decent gear now.

You can cast raise skeleton archer from the left mouse button but not raise skeleton.

I would say nerfing melee druid its the best thing Hu has ever seen. Before u jump on me think about how many melee barbs, paladins , zons ,or sins have u seen in Hu in all this time. Very few , to few, that's the truth. Why ? , cause druid beats every other melee char in every single aspect. 99% of the melee chars even now are druids. Damn shame.

Barb:In general barbs have a hard time throwing points into synergies for their abilities. They have a lot of 1 point wonders they have to fill out, necessary abilities like BO/inc stam, which leaves them with very few points to work with after their main damage ability is filled out along with the other staples.

A huge problem with the change to berserk is that while it probably would add a lot more usability and power the the skill, it's not something any barb can really afford to throw 20 points into seeing as the synergy it provides isn't very powerful. To this end, I'd like to see berserk and synergies to main abilities(whirlwind/frenzy/concentration) adjusted so that one can justify leveling berserk.

For example, removing whirlwind's double synergy and adjusting berserk to 30% ED per level would make the barbarian's flexibility and power a lot stronger without really mucking up many other things.

-Berserk should be a primary synergy for all main abilities adding ED not a conversion, other synergies can remain to allow one to choose between defensive/offensive capabilities(max shout/iron skin or add more damage)-Whirlwind should get a buff to the ED it gains per level.-Lower the mana cost of synergy, remove it from frenzy

Assassin:I like the adjustments to death sentry/fade, it'll allow melee builds to shine a bit more. The only gripe I have with what has been adjusted is that lack of synergy to dclaw. Having made multiply dclaw sins, the issue with the build is the lack of clearing ability combined with the very strong starting dclaw that falls off extremely quickly because of a lack of ways to add power to it later on.

I'd like to see tiger strike/dragon tail added as synergies to the skill, providing dclaw sins an ability to continue to grow past level 30ish in terms of damage while giving them a solid ability to deal with trash.

-35% damage per level of dragon tail/tiger strike as synergy to dclaw

Sorceress:Hydra nerf is incredibly too heavy, it turns a playable but overpowered build into an unplayable disaster. Scaling back the damage values is far more efficient while leaving the build something that is playable and can contribute to the team. In reality you've made them stronger against bosses, but unplayable through the game beyond an enchant bot.

-Hydra damage should be scaled back 40%, but changed back to fireballs.

Amazon:Zons in general have a hard time covering their resists, especially bowa/melee zons and less mainstream builds that aren't really casters. It would be nice to see resists added to one of their abilities, though this could lead to caster zons becoming to powerful. The solution would be to give an ability that melee zons would surely put points into(crit strike, for example) to give resistances only if there are no points in caster abilities(poison/plague/lightning javelin, etc).

I'm not sure if poison zons were switched back, I see they cause counters and I'm assuming this means they now prevent boss healing, but if this isn't the case this needs to be switched back. It's a very touchy matter trying to nerf them through their damage because in all honesty their damage is pretty poor until they're extremely geared, which is when they get out of hand. I think increasing their damage early on by 25% while nerfing their overall damage as the game progresses by 10% would be a viable means of making them still capable of playing through the game but hurting their ability to kill bosses fast as fuck when they're completely tricked out.

My last opinion on zons is the fire bowazon, I think the fire pool it creates should last longer, most burn area boss killers have decent burn but the bowazons only have a 3 second fire.

-Crit strike gives resists(similar to natural resistance of barb) if no points are in any of the javelin caster abilities.-Jab adds 30% ed per level-Jab's synergies add 25% ed per level-Increase poison zon's damage early on by a siginficant amount, reduce their end game damage by a minor amount-Burn from immolation arrow doubled in duration

Druids:I like most of the changes as it brings them closer to other melee builds, however I think fury could get buffed up with a tad more ED/lvl.

Nado druids could use a 100% buff to their damage and removing the dual nado spawn to help deal with counters when hitting bosses. Their synergies could be streamlined a bit better as well.

Paladin:I like the changes, I'd just do them a bit differently so they can be more easily utilized.

-2% hp per points in smite/zeal/vengeance, 80% cap allowing a choice between a synergy for damage and health for survivability

Necromancers:Nearly halving the amount of skeletons and nerfing their health by 40% may be a too much, but this is something that's more or less going to more a test and see how it works. I can say from playing a summoner to 99 is while they are powerful once they get giantskull, a fanaticism source, and teleport they are incredibly weak otherwise beyond amping for more mainstream classes. I will say that even at 99 tricked out like crazy I did find my skeletons dying pretty quickly in the later stages of the game that is heavier with spell damage, like WSK, so this seems like it could be a dangerous change. Another thing with the massive nerfs to summoners is that to my knowledge trash has remained relatively unaffected in regards to their physical resist, meaning with amp being 40% less effective you're going to do a significantly less amount of damage to trash. My merc does around 30k damage, and she definitely hits MUCH harder than the skeleton archers, so I'm not sure what would cause the discrepancy in our numbers.

The changes to poison is an incredibly good step in the right direction, but I am very leery of something that does 50% more damage than dagger, as dagger can get up to like 700k. I suppose this is something that just needs to be tested to see how it pans out.

-Adjust the archers by added a fire element, but leave their physical capability alone.-Cap skeletons at 16, nerf HP by 20%.

Wonder why summon druids are not mentioned at all.. they are mediocre compared to summon necs. I don't know how to explain how much better summon necs are than summon druids... 1) they get way more summons at very little pts. 2) they do way more damage and golems are getting buffed. 3) nec gets amp as a curse. 4) nec gets ce. 5) nec can rock Oak from wisp. 6) Nec has aoskill teleport shield so u can even wear war ( pappys nec ) idk imo summon druid needs some changes. at L36 bear doesn't even break 10k and hes just one summon. I'll keep playing mine but I don't see how they are great.. wolfs die to everything. It's annoying.

_________________"Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."

last I spoke with mraw he said nearly everything was finished that was previously discussed. Lots of testing needs to be done, and probably another couple rounds of suggestions/changes.

Although I like some changes being talked about here's a question: at this stage of HU's life do we really need to "re-invent" HU now? Think about it, a shitton of skill changes, for what? Correcting an issue of excessive aura states. Hmmm, with an ass load of gear with auras, people are so fucking reliant on that gear we change skills instead. Which btw, will be a balancing nightmare. Instead of a massive overhaul, why are we not focusing on content changes, i.e. new or revised areas? In looking at what I see and what's been said HU sounds like 1.4 will make 1.21z seem difficult. Why? adding back in of DR, RES, SORBS. Didn't they get nerfed to add challenge? Remember guys and gals, one small but well meant change can take a viable build and render it useless and obsolete, like physical chars have been for 2+ patches now. Look at the change log, it reads like going from 1.21z to 1.3a with the laundry list proposed.

_________________"The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits" Albert Einstein

Although I like some changes being talked about here's a question: at this stage of HU's life do we really need to "re-invent" HU now?

It seems most people DO want lots of additions to make the game fresh again.

kwikster wrote:

Think about it, a shitton of skill changes, for what? Correcting an issue of excessive aura states. Hmmm, with an ass load of gear with auras, people are so fucking reliant on that gear we change skills instead. Which btw, will be a balancing nightmare.

Black Hades was the biggest offender(pretty sure mraw changed it), 4 states on one armor. Dyes are another. But even long before this you could abuse the max states. Combining the 3 shouts was the easiest way to reduce this issue. You are right though, aura on equip has become too common, Kev was arguing against this during previous patches for this exact reason (state overload)

kwikster wrote:

Instead of a massive overhaul, why are we not focusing on content changes, i.e. new or revised areas?

That wasn't mraws focus. Most would agree that we do need new levels and what not, just takes some doing.

kwikster wrote:

In looking at what I see and what's been said HU sounds like 1.4 will make 1.21z seem difficult.

True. This was mraw's attempt to bring melee back up to par. I've tested the patch and melee feels good. Pious has been talking about now making some overall changes to make the game more difficult. Harder bosses, maybe removal of juvs, etc. I hope that happens.

_________________

PureRage-DoD wrote:

Cowards die in shame, I ain't afraid to lose a char, it's not like it's important.

Wassup ben!Mraw moved to taiwan and didnt have time to finish it up so were still on 1.3 with not much has happened lately. No planned reset, not much has happened for a few months now. Mraw and i duoed to a2 hell testing it with a barb and ama before he bounced, was great.

After playing through this patch twice via a "reset" (first time was 3 weeks into the season, second time is with the no HP buffs non ladder fresh start), I have really taken notice to how poorly the rune drop progression is compared to character level and monster level progression. I have had this sentiment reciprocated from a lot of people as well... the runes that are required for the runewords you want to make are usually not available or just plain do not drop until you are well past that, usually 20-40 levels after the fact. Some examples/stuff that backs up my thinking:

- In this playthrough, I have yet to find anything higher than a Dol rune. I am now level 63 in A2 nightmare. Dol is a level 31 rune, of which usually most characters are level 31 around end of A2 normal, and monsters/bosses become level 30+ in A3 normal. - Countess and Nihlathak really do not drop any worthwhile runes at all except for 2 cases: normal countess and hell nilathak. normal Nihl has a 1.72% chance to drop a Fal rune (level 41) despite being a level 55 rune-dropping boss. Hell countess has a 12% chance to drop an El rune. These don't promote any reasoning to farming them at all except for the aforementioned times (normal C and Hell N) because the character progression far surpasses the rune dropping.

I think to remedy this issue, we should adjust both the runes that each one drops and also limit the range of runes that each one drops. Here is my proposal:

you got really unlucky with your rune drops when clearing trash. I got 3 io, a dol, and hel all in a5 norm. I do really like the changes to boss drops tho. Give us a chance to farm some decent runes in norm/nm

_________________

PureRage-DoD wrote:

Cowards die in shame, I ain't afraid to lose a char, it's not like it's important.

you got really unlucky with your rune drops when clearing trash. I got 3 io, a dol, and hel all in a5 norm. I do really like the changes to boss drops tho. Give us a chance to farm some decent runes in norm/nm

The thing is these runes are nothing to write home about. Those are level 30-35 runes, youre in a5 at level 55+ and getting runes that are low to mid 30s. That's the disconnect with the rune dropping system.

i like all the changes i've read so far. we have a few adjustments in store for bosses as well that should make for some interesting surprises. these of course are being added ontop of the mraw patch already made.

despite my tests etc with no hp buffs on non-ladder i feel that it would be a huge undertaking to try to nerf them as well as juvs. add to that the amount of resistance there may be to such changes and its most likely that these will not happen in the next patch.

anyone that has been working on anything so far should send a pm so material can be coordinated.

It's time to bring back Hell Unleashed. I am working on a patch based off mrawskrad's 1.4 version, things I will be changing:

-Significant adjustment and rebalancing of most bosses. Lets face it, these guys haven't changed in like 8 years and I don't mean defenses like the silly boss charm. Players get a lot of love in 1.4, time for some boss love too. Things will get shaken up a bit. No more blitzing through a ladder in three days, you better farm some real gear before you take on my boys.

The only thing I've seen so far that I have to ask (aside from things I would ask that have already been asked) would be can you add the animation back into static? It's dumb to not be able to see what you're able to hit when casting a spell and having to guess all the time on if you're close enough to a monster to hit it

Maybe give a reduced range of uniques that these bosses can drop to make more of an incentive to farm bosses instead of trash mobs.

I also think this can apply to runes (as i proposed above) where you can make incentive to farm stuff like countess and nith for a good guaranteed drop of good runes. The current status quo has people farming as early as flayer jungle for any rune (including zods), and this is more effective than the current countess/nith drops.

Here is some more in depth boss info now that I have started balance testing.

-Bosses no longer have a single scary ability. All of their primary abilities have insane damage meant to be taken by a dedicated tank only. I hope you brought one who faces the boss away from the rest of the group. Boss damage is balanced around specialized gear, not general gear. All bosses now have high phys damage and expect max block at every point in the game along with increasing dr% depending on where the boss is in item progression. Boss elemental damage expects max res at every point in the game. You can easily max your res in a1 normal with sets rares and charms so there is no excuse. If you fight an lr or conv boss and your res aren't stacked, you are not prepared enough. If you fight elemental bosses without absorb, same story. Defensive stats are the key here, not having an insane hp bulb although you will need good hp and reactions to survive as a tank. Respect the bosses or they will wipe the floor with you constantly and you'll get stuck in a1 normal. Boss counters are not changing much, they are balanced around caster defensive stats. Boss hp is staying basically the same so fights will not change in duration.

-Normal and nightmare are being very finely tuned to be challenging even with very good gear, and hell will be near impossible. Your gear will never truly be prepared enough for a boss. You have to make up the rest in skill and party synergy.

-Boss minions are buffed. If your tank runs into the boss with all his minions alive he's going to get raped. Have an off tank melee or summons to hold the minions while you kill them.

-Telegraphed boss abilities do more damage because they are easily dodged. If you sit in darkness triple meteor you are going to need several juvs if you don't die outright.

-Portal bosses before act bosses and act bosses themselves will be much more brutal than other bosses so take extra time to prepare before you attempt to finish an act. Endgame Los Sammy soulmancer will still be harder of course.

- Increase both character and stash gold holding capacity- Let NPCs that sell runes/gems have an infinite store of runes/gems (instead of buying one gem and it leaving the NPC vendor screen)- Make jewels a permanent staple in gheed's gambling page like rings and amulets.

If we're on the subject of boss cheesing, certain other maps/things with cheesing:

- Hatestorm --> having him trapped up on the stairway/causeway while you're down below in upper kurast jungle area- De Seis and Moloch --> You can park behind a turn while blasting away at them (for Moloch, it's the map where the seal that spawns him is around and behind the first seal; and I think DeSeis won't fly over the "river" area if theres the cathedral walls around)

I'd also suggest certain things go away, like Council AI where they run across the god damn map after losing a chunk of their life. Would rather have them chase you the whole time and be stronger than having them run to the other side of the map.

I'd also suggest certain things go away, like Council AI where they run across the god damn map after losing a chunk of their life. Would rather have them chase you the whole time and be stronger than having them run to the other side of the map.

I tried several different ai's on council but most of them just cause the boss to stand there doing nothing, or randomly die when trying to use a skill. Not sure if I can do anything about this yet.

so blade fury either needs to be replaced or will be entirely removed. if someone wants to help create a skill that can be added in its place then we can add it. otherwise there will probably be no replacement.

so blade fury either needs to be replaced or will be entirely removed. if someone wants to help create a skill that can be added in its place then we can add it. otherwise there will probably be no replacement.

How about something that spams a circle around you, like 5 blades shooting outward in 5 directions

so blade fury either needs to be replaced or will be entirely removed. if someone wants to help create a skill that can be added in its place then we can add it. otherwise there will probably be no replacement.

How about something that spams a circle around you, like 5 blades shooting outward in 5 directions

not a bad idea, just need someone to do it sapphire is limited with doing new skills. if you can that would be awsome!

so blade fury either needs to be replaced or will be entirely removed. if someone wants to help create a skill that can be added in its place then we can add it. otherwise there will probably be no replacement.

How about something that spams a circle around you, like 5 blades shooting outward in 5 directions

not a bad idea, just need someone to do it sapphire is limited with doing new skills. if you can that would be awsome!

quality of life: I should probably know this (or i could look at the files), but why can't we make potions stackable?

cheese: do people not cheese Andariel by walking her in a circle around the obstacle near the portal with ranged characters? norm and nm it works pretty straightforwardly...not sure about hell.

People have tried to fix potion stacking, potions and gems unlimited at vendor before but had no luck. I know very little about misc.txt so I wouldn't be able to fix it either.

Boss cheese should be removed, they move faster and maps are adjusted, certain bosses now fly over terrain as well.

Hell bosses will be finished today. After that is done I will do finishing touches on skills/items and try to fix some quality of life issues. Patch should be ready for the server hosts sometime tomorrow with the reset soon after.

You can use afj sheet editor from pk. I have a lot of new skills though so if you did make one I'd have to add your code to my txts. Although I don't think anyone really cares and I can just set the skill to req lvl 110 or something and remove prereqs.

got it thanks.i know enough to make it just a copy and paste into the txt files (would need the last number in skills, skilldescrip, missiles, and possibly states (is this getting close to the cap?). the bigger issue would be getting the strings into the .tbl files. and that thing called balance...

it is probably more trouble than it is worth at this time since you are in the final run.

_________________The reader should not be discouraged if...he does not have the prerequisites to read the prerequisites. P. Halmos

after sapphirerawk did some testing its clear that the returned dmg (thorns) mod had to be removed for the time being. the physical resist changes combined with the buff to bosses simply made it too powerful.

its been removed from all items and skills.

so being that we have 2 skills that are entirely based on exactly that (thorns aura, iron maiden) that no longer return damage, these 2 skills need to be essentially need to give another bonus. iron golem could also use a little buff to compensate.

iron maiden already has 33% enemy cast speed reduction which isn't bad but something else added to that is welcome. thorns.. that needs another bonus. any ideas are welcome as long as the changes aren't too complicated!

Iron Golem could simply be made into a true tank. One that won't necessarily get 1 shot by bosses. Has poison damage and 90% PLR, high resists, small chance of crushing blow (5% + 1% every 4 hard points?) and lots of hp.

Iron Maiden has the cast speed reduction and can also be made to lower defense and attack.

after sapphirerawk did some testing its clear that the returned dmg (thorns) mod had to be removed for the time being. the physical resist changes combined with the buff to bosses simply made it too powerful.

its been removed from all items and skills.

so being that we have 2 skills that are entirely based on exactly that (thorns aura, iron maiden) that no longer return damage, these 2 skills need to be essentially need to give another bonus. iron golem could also use a little buff to compensate.

iron maiden already has 33% enemy cast speed reduction which isn't bad but something else added to that is welcome. thorns.. that needs another bonus. any ideas are welcome as long as the changes aren't too complicated!

Here are some things I thought up:1) Make Thorns some type of Magic Damage Absorb aura similar to Elemental absorbs when Using Salvation. Side note the nerf to absorbs on Salvation was waaaaay to much. I didnt think the 20 absorbs was bad considering you have to spend 20 pts in it, but the 10 it is currently at is stupid. No point in using it at 10 max. I think it should be put at 15. Barbs get Magic absorb from nat resistance making thorns this for pallys will fit with synergies from sanctuary and wont lead to overpowering at 15%. 2) remove the 4% life buff from holy shield and make thorns some type of reduced inc stamina like barbs.3) Make thorns a melee mastery, or AR mastery, or leech mastery.4) Make thorns only affect converts and buff them slightly. Then you cant use on bosses and boosts a skill no one uses.

Thorns aura is replaced by a magic find and gold find aura. 100% gf and 25% mf base, 10% gf and 5% mf per soft level. Iron maiden now pierces magic resistance, starting at 10% and 1% per hard point up to 30%, it also slows casting speed as before. Blade fury has been replaced by a similar skill that shoots a blade which then shoots at nearby enemies without channeling.

Thorns aura is replaced by a magic find and gold find aura. 100% gf and 25% mf base, 10% gf and 5% mf per soft level. Iron maiden now pierces magic resistance, starting at 10% and 1% per hard point up to 30%, it also slows casting speed as before. Blade fury has been replaced by a similar skill that shoots a blade which then shoots at nearby enemies without channeling.

The Magic Resistance pierce is only for the necro's IM skill right? The IM that is cast by like Diablo still affects physical players the same way or will it also do the magic pierce and slow?

I still believe the base damage on most weapons should be increased so endgame weapons don't need 500% Enhanced damage to be useful.

Cloak of shadow would make a pretty decent blind aoe aura.

The assassin shadows (warrior mostly) need a item level synergy or something so it isn't so far behind Master in item levels.

New phoenix strike needs a damage and aoe range nerf.Assassin cold charge skill crashes the game if slowed with slow missile.

Can we make Druid crows not complete shit? What about Druid thorn aura Sage? Is that getting a rework/buff?

Is Conversion ever going to not suck?

Can we get a massive drop/monster level buff to the last few areas of an act so we actually have somewhere to farm/level up?

Is it still possible to bypass gathering the parts in act 3 to get to meph? This shit needs fixed. (also, poison spider is fucking retarded against physical characters)

Has been mentioned but increasing gold in char and stash really needs to be done.

I'm glad bosses are getting a buff and we're throwing solo players out the window, but it might throw off new players.I don't mind difficult bosses, what I do mind however is massive difficulty spikes.

Can we allow Blade sentinel to leech life/mana please?

Will sorcs still suck ass before 36?

Can somebody do something about river of flame destroying retinas?

Been waiting for this one for a long time. Heres hoping for a healthy new season.Thanks a lot to all those involved, even if it looks like I'm whining a lot. No words can describe the respect I have for you people.

Hi guys! Finally immo back to HU.So, good to see set of proposals for upgrade mod.I would suggest to add an auras for Necro's golems as it has on original LOD for fun, Fire golem (Holy Fire), Iron - (Holy Thorns), Clay - (Holy Freeze), Blood - (Holy Shock).Would be nice

Once:

Zeal skill: I think fixing skill Zeal for pal and did more dmg.On last patches its type of pally crap:P He's use one-H weapons so I think to add more damage would be quite good.

Fist of Heavens: All players knows thats this skill has been fixed on new patch (and now agaist demons all must use Pierce + san aura) so almost no one no used fohers...And I think add san aura for more dmg bad idea, Foher must use healing auras and it preserves the maximum dmg.Please think about it guys...

_________________I grew up where, when a door closed, a window didn't open. The only thing I had was cracks. I'd do everything to get through those cracks - scratch, claw, bite, push, bleed. Now the opportunity is here. The door is wide open, and it's as big as a garage

I still believe the base damage on most weapons should be increased so endgame weapons don't need 500% Enhanced damage to be useful.

I'd like to do this but too late in the cycle to rebalance all weapon damage. We will have more info next patch about what weapon builds need adjustments.

Riem821 wrote:

Cloak of shadow would make a pretty decent blind aoe aura.

May not work as you think it would due to engine.

Riem821 wrote:

The assassin shadows (warrior mostly) need a item level synergy or something so it isn't so far behind Master in item levels.

Shadowmaster got slightly nerfed, we'll see how they compare during the patch.

Riem821 wrote:

New phoenix strike needs a damage and aoe range nerf.

We'll see during patch.

Riem821 wrote:

Assassin cold charge skill crashes the game if slowed with slow missile.

Which charge? You can only get slow missiles from worldstone golems in late a5 so not an emergency issue.

Riem821 wrote:

Can we make Druid crows not complete shit? What about Druid thorn aura Sage? Is that getting a rework/buff?

Crows will get some love in the future. Spirit of barbs is already an insane spirit to have around, it didn't need any replacement to losing it's thorns.

Riem821 wrote:

Is Conversion ever going to not suck?

Probably not since most monsters you want to convert are immune to it, maybe replaced with new skill in the future.

Riem821 wrote:

Can we get a massive drop/monster level buff to the last few areas of an act so we actually have somewhere to farm/level up?

Gold and low-mid rune drops are buffed to help with gearing.

Riem821 wrote:

Is it still possible to bypass gathering the parts in act 3 to get to meph? This shit needs fixed. (also, poison spider is fucking retarded against physical characters)

Rushing a3 is not that big of a problem imo. Lots of builds have bosses that are immune, it's a party mod.

Riem821 wrote:

Has been mentioned but increasing gold in char and stash really needs to be done.

This has been increased in the patch.

Riem821 wrote:

I'm glad bosses are getting a buff and we're throwing solo players out the window, but it might throw off new players.I don't mind difficult bosses, what I do mind however is massive difficulty spikes.

The only massive difficulty spike is comparing old hu to the new patch. Bosses compared to each other next patch ramp up gradually.

[...]Patch is compiling and uploading today. No more changes unless it's an emergency.

Is it possible to change the behaviour of Thunder Storm for the next patches ? I'd love to see a chance to cast a nova on hit enemies per hard point, or further decrease the interval of thunder storm per hard point. I always liked the idea playing a pure Thunder Storm on a sorc.

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